How Would You Move Mount Fuji?

Abstract: How Would You Move Mount Fuji? explores the riddles and puzzles used in interviews by Microsoft and other high-tech companies. The author traces the rise and controversial fall of employer-mandated IQ tests, the peculiar obsessions of Bill Gates (who plays figsaw puzzles as a competitive sport) and the sadistic mind games of Wall Street (which reportedly les one job seeker to smash a forty-third story window).

 

About the Author: William Poundstone is the author of nine books, including Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos, Prisoner's Dilemma, Labyrinths of Reason, and the Popular Big Secrets series, which inspired two television network specials. He has written for Esquire, Harper's, The Economist, and the New York Times Book Review, and his science writing has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Los Angeles.

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How to Outsmart the Puzzle Interview? Contd...

3. Forget you ever learned calculus: Corporate interviews rarely expect expertise in complex subjects such as calculus. It's a mistake to think that this type of interviews call for in depth knowledge in the field unrelated to the position the candidate is being interviewed for. 4. Big, complicated questions usually have simple answers: This puzzle interview is similar to the quiz shows relayed as a part of TV programs. Quiz shows design questions in such a way that the largest fraction of the viewing audience feel that they should have gotten that question. 5. Simple questions often demand complicated answers: Questions such as “Why do mirrors reflect right and left?” or “Why are beer cans tapered at the top and bottom?” in general ask for relatively long and careful thinking.   6. “Perfectly logical beings” are not like you and me: “Perfectly logical” is a code word which is understandable only by puzzle fans but opaque to every one else. When a candidate comes across such a questions he should forget all the regular behavioral patterns.

7. When some important information is missing in a logic puzzle, lay out the possible scenarios. Candidate often finds that he doesn't need the missing information to solve the problem: When a puzzle has a disjunction, an unknown, the candidate must be prepared to reason logically from each of the possible alternatives. He will almost always find that this sort of persistent reasoning results in a breakthrough.

How Innovative Companies Ought to Interview?

Interview puzzles are designed as a negative screen. They are meant to help the interviewer avoid choosing the wrong people. One can rarely assert convincingly that these puzzles help in identifying “geniuses”. This conservative approach is essential when bad hires are very costly.

A few guidelines that help recruiter are given below:

1.The value of the puzzles is in inverse proportion to the candidate's experience: Microsoft never uses logic puzzles while interviewing senior management. When a candidate has got a track record, that throws light on what the candidate is, it is always preferable to discuss that than to pose puzzles. In case of freshers, puzzles test problem-solving abilities. Hence, preferable.

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